Alliance Wars: Regarding recent actions taken on Alliances

While many applaud recent action Kabam has taken on a number of alliances stemming from various war infractions or feel like punishments haven't gone far enough, I would like to take a moment and explore this topic a bit further. Specifically, when punitive action was taken on entire alliance for deeds of an individual member, without revealing a sliver of details to the leader and officers.

What Kabam has done here was institute a form of collective punishment framework. As in, attempting to discourage individuals from violating terms of service by threatening to punish entire alliance for their deeds. That is Kabam's solution to creating a fair and competitive environment for their ecosystem -- holding players hostage. Whoever you are reading this post, you can very well be next. All the effort, planning, resources and, yes, in many cases, money you put in to reach that next war tier can go down the drain at any moment due to action of any one of 29 other individuals in your alliance. You will be punished through no fault of your own having done nothing wrong. I am sorry, but how is this EVER ok?. Kabam spins this as an action against the alliance, not an individual. That, of course, could not be farther from the truth. Just ask the 29 individuals who have no idea what just happened and why.

Instead of building controls to and properly designing their ecosystem, they allow season 1 pilot wars results stand. And now, they are "making an example" by punishing entire alliances for actions of a single member.

Easier said than done you say? Not really.

1) If this is a championship, create brackets and make alliances face each other to determine champion and order underneath (eliminates all colluding).

2) Either fully eliminate account sharing or legitimize it on limited basis. This "Account sharing is against ToS, but we are not gonna do anything about it unless you play AW" stance is amateur hour...

All of this is beside the point. Kabam must immediately revisit this recent action and have a dialog with leaders of effected alliances.

Disclaimer: my alliance was not a part of this action, but many of my in game friends were. Some are fantastic and truly honorable individuals who do not deserve this.

Comments

New_Noob168

It broke up a few alliances and the cheaters squirmed to other alliances and they are back on top.

CoatHang3r

Aw is a team sport and the actions of individuals affect the teams progression. Just like other popular team sports penalties/infractions set the team back as a whole or individuals will be able to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the team.

In football Just imagine an individual getting a 10 yard penalty rather than the team.

How would penalty kicks in soccer work? I mean the goal keeper wasn’t party to the infraction right?

The pitcher in baseball balks so why does they rest of the team have to pay the consequences?

Collective punishment (per your citation) is an act of retaliation that extends beyong parties involved. Just how is MCOC retaliating against parties not involved in the team sport where cheating took place?

Hanzum

I wholeheartedly agree that cheaters and any acts against the spirit of FairPlay be severely punished. What I don’t agree with is convicting 29 players for 1 persons crime. 2* wars is a crime committed by all 30, one has the choice to leave after if they disagree (considering it’s before lockout period). Piloting by one member does not make all parties guilty especially when the ally is unaware. Okay say you take this approach, atleast ban the player(s) who piloted so they are directly punished as well not to hide behind privacy rules.

It’s heartbreaking for all your efforts over a 2 month span to be wasted over reasons unknown.

Hanzum

Maidril

I still like another post’s suggestion of branding cheaters. Makes it easy.

Then they can form cheaters alliances and mess up their own game experience.

ArcDeAngelus

If athletes in a team get caught taking PEDs the entire team are punished by the removal of their achievements. It's not only fair but lesser punishment in comparison with competitions around the globe. You don't have to be actively cheating yourself, but if someone in your team is you do not deserve what you won unfairly. Alliances here still get to keep previous rewards won and only take a points reduction and lowering of war rating. Another difference in sporting codes is cheaters are named and shamed, in this case Kabam are a little light on their punishments which is why people are willing to continue risking it.

Maximus_Spankerson

CoatHang3r wrote: »

Aw is a team sport and the actions of individuals affect the teams progression. Just like other popular team sports penalties/infractions set the team back as a whole or individuals will be able to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the team.

In football Just imagine an individual getting a 10 yard penalty rather than the team.

How would penalty kicks in soccer work? I mean the goal keeper wasn’t party to the infraction right?

The pitcher in baseball balks so why does they rest of the team have to pay the consequences?

Collective punishment (per your citation) is an act of retaliation that extends beyong parties involved. Just how is MCOC retaliating against parties not involved in the team sport where cheating took place?

I disagree at using team sport analogy here. When an individual athlete is caught for using performance enhancing drugs, he gets suspended. The team does suffer by the virtue of that athletes absence, but that's all. Ever heard of an NFL team lose season standings because players get caught for steroids? Rarely do results of games get overturned (if ever), even if one team unfairly won on a missed penalty. So, no, this analogy doesn't work here. Not to mention, everyone knows why the team is being penalized.

I truly hope you are that sure in each and everyone of your 29 loosely affiliated alliance mates and none of them do anything that will effect you... regardless of choices you make..

Maximus_Spankerson

My real point here is that what Kabam has done here is effectively stated that any one of you may be subject for punitive action, without explanation, regardless of choices you make. Hope you all trust the 29 loosely affiliated alliance mates you play with to not share account, mod, etc..

CoatHang3r

Maximus_Spankerson wrote: »

My real point here is that what Kabam has done here is effectively stated that any one of you may be subject for punitive action, without explanation, regardless of choices you make. Hope you all trust the 29 loosely affiliated alliance mates you play with to not share account, mod, etc..

That’s not what happens though. The team recieves a penatly when benefiting from an individual breaking the rules, the other 29 players have had no action taken against them.

GroundedWisdom

As Coat mentioned, it's two-fold, really. It removes the spoils from cheating because regardless of how many participated in it, the Ally benefits from the cheating. That's just a byproduct of group Rewards. The second purpose is to discourage Players from cheating.
To be honest, I still have my doubts that these cases are the result of one person cheating. It usually involves a number. I wouldn't say always. However, more often than not. It's also hard to believe that no one was aware of anything. It can happen, but it seems to be the number one argument on here.

LeNoirFaineant

My only problem is that they protect the identity of the cheater and a lot of alliances are left with no idea how to prevent it from happening again. This isn't much of a problem for top tier groups, but a lot of low alliances have to recruit whoever they can get to stay afloat. It's much easier to accept the penalty if you can kick the guilty party.

ContestOfNoobs

Maidril wrote: »

I still like another post’s suggestion of branding cheaters. Makes it easy.

Then they can form cheaters alliances and mess up their own game experience.

yup I would want to know automatically know if someone is a cheater in my alliance, these days people can just show there shiny 2 r5 5* and can easily get into any alliance.

also people can name change to run away from anything they did in the pass. all it takes is some collective group to keep tabs on that person.

There was a person who used 1,000+ units of aq potions from alliance mate who sent them so they can finish there path. Died to R3 hood using a trinity...he had a r5 blade. this is Tier 1 war.

After he was booted, he threaten to exposed defense and even said he thought about just leaving mid war to leave.
Luckily there was pics and also video proof of him dieing and getting his team wiped.

the news spread to other top allainces and when he was looked up his name was gone.
in game name was changed, line was deleted, so basically he went on to take a new identity and joined some random alliance to hide out and get rewards.

they had to track his name down by looking as past wars and u can see that person new name.

but hey people don't want people branded but u don't know what kind of people ur recruiting or what they have done.

Maximus_Spankerson

Kabam has to set up a framework where only the guilty get punished. Period.

Maximus_Spankerson

In the mean time, if you are a part of penalized alliance having done nothing wrong yourself, enjoy refund open season.

VimesVonlip

It not just one person though. A 2* war requires all the members of the alliance to cheat therefore they're all getting punished, as they should be.

KrugtheOgre

My alliance just got penalized rather harshly and we can not for the life of us figure out why. Most of my alliance has been together for nearly a year. Just ts not like we have been steam rolling our opponents and I watch as the players move. Nothing looks unusual. But the reason I was given was a form letter that threatens further penalties if the behavior continues. What behavior? Who did it? Why was the group penalized? No answers. Very frustrating to fix a problem with no information. Not happy.

Maximus_Spankerson

VimesVonlip wrote: »

It not just one person though. A 2* war requires all the members of the alliance to cheat therefore they're all getting punished, as they should be.

@VimesVonlip, you are right. In 2* wars, every alliance member was a willing participant and, thus, complicit. I am talking about actions due to one individual's alleged ToS violation -- without details or explanation.

ezmoney

There shouldn't be anymore discussion. If PROVEN, the accounts should be perma-banned and wiped. The season rewards for the alliance should be null. Each cheating alliance affects all other legit PAYING alliances in the game. If I'm buying and spending units toward AW then I expect the match to be fair and for my squads points to count in a legit system. If teams are knowingly circumventing the ToS and still allowed to participate in the same season they're cheating this then something is broken in KABAM land. There needs to be a zero tolerance policy and real punishments need to be dealt as this **** is getting out of control. Either that or they can start by refunding units spent during AW while trying to achieve rewards by playing legit.

battleone

CoatHang3r wrote: »

Aw is a team sport and the actions of individuals affect the teams progression. Just like other popular team sports penalties/infractions set the team back as a whole or individuals will be able to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the team.

In football Just imagine an individual getting a 10 yard penalty rather than the team.

How would penalty kicks in soccer work? I mean the goal keeper wasn’t party to the infraction right?

The pitcher in baseball balks so why does they rest of the team have to pay the consequences?

Collective punishment (per your citation) is an act of retaliation that extends beyong parties involved. Just how is MCOC retaliating against parties not involved in the team sport where cheating took place?

I agree with this analogy except for the fact the refs dont whisper to each other who the infraction is on and penalize the team without the coach having any idea who did something wrong lol.

rockykoston

Lol, I think we've seen enough to know now that this is not ONE person piloting or ONE person colluding, so lets cut the BS. Before recruitment, the terms are made clear about piloting and yada yada..

With actions of someone's alliance (one or more ppl), the other alliance loses ALL their points, the entire opposition alliance loses rewards, so why shouldn't the cheating alliance lose all they got? Just tell me why?

The position of not sharing details of punishment is ok and it works where the actual punishment is severe enough, like other companies BAN players for cheating. What is being done here, almost feels like the cheaters are being cheered and motivated to cheat/spend more because why not? Money talks.

RehctansBew

The current system is not a deterrent for cheating. They slap the top alliances on the wrist, take away 1 million war points, then drop there war rating by 600. So in now a masters alliance is down facing plat 2 alliances. Basically cruzing for the remainder of the season to finish back in masters or plat 1. Meanwhile those in plat 2 and plat 3 get crushed by said alliances and risk falling out their current spot.

If you want a punishment that works, strip 8 million points away and leave the war rating the same. Now they are facing the same competition but wont be able to climb back up.

ezmoney

RehctansBew wrote: »

The current system is not a deterrent for cheating. They slap the top alliances on the wrist, take away 1 million war points, then drop there war rating by 600. So in now a masters alliance is down facing plat 2 alliances. Basically cruzing for the remainder of the season to finish back in masters or plat 1. Meanwhile those in plat 2 and plat 3 get crushed by said alliances and risk falling out their current spot.

If you want a punishment that works, strip 8 million points away and leave the war rating the same. Now they are facing the same competition but wont be able to climb back up.

If an alliance cheats then they should forfeit all AW rewards and matchmaking until the season concludes period.

unknown

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rockykoston

ezmoney wrote: »

RehctansBew wrote: »

The current system is not a deterrent for cheating. They slap the top alliances on the wrist, take away 1 million war points, then drop there war rating by 600. So in now a masters alliance is down facing plat 2 alliances. Basically cruzing for the remainder of the season to finish back in masters or plat 1. Meanwhile those in plat 2 and plat 3 get crushed by said alliances and risk falling out their current spot.

If you want a punishment that works, strip 8 million points away and leave the war rating the same. Now they are facing the same competition but wont be able to climb back up.

If an alliance cheats then they should forfeit all AW rewards and matchmaking until the season concludes period.

Everyone gets it except the people who are in charge.

DNA3000

RehctansBew wrote: »

The current system is not a deterrent for cheating. They slap the top alliances on the wrist, take away 1 million war points, then drop there war rating by 600. So in now a masters alliance is down facing plat 2 alliances. Basically cruzing for the remainder of the season to finish back in masters or plat 1. Meanwhile those in plat 2 and plat 3 get crushed by said alliances and risk falling out their current spot.

If you want a punishment that works, strip 8 million points away and leave the war rating the same. Now they are facing the same competition but wont be able to climb back up.

Stripping a lot of points and leaving war rating intact does penalize the alliance more than dropping war rating and doesn't have the side effect of allowing the penalized alliance to fight weaker competition which softens the penalty, but it can be difficult to tune the penalty by tier, and the penalty shouldn't just work for the top tier alliances: it should theoretically work against any alliance at any tier.

I've been advocating a multiplier penalty since season one. You can still penalize season points (you should at the very least take away the points they earned in any way they are found cheating in, plus some punitive extra amount of points as penalty), but you also slap a multiplier penalty for a certain number of wars, say 0.5. Until that penalty expires, you only earn half the points you would otherwise earn, but you remain in the same tier facing the same competition. If you are in tier 1, you still get a x7 mutliplier, but then you also get hit with the 0.5 penalty. In net effect, you have only a 3.5 multipler.

If you are caught cheating in the last war of the season and you are hit with a six war multiplier penalty, that penalty carries over into the next season: you cannot shake it during the "off season." It specifically affects wars within the competitive season. It would be like serving out a suspension in sports: you can't serve those out during the off season. This ensures the full penalty is served out, even if you're caught cheating at the end of a season.

GOT_BOOST

DNA3000 wrote: »

RehctansBew wrote: »

The current system is not a deterrent for cheating. They slap the top alliances on the wrist, take away 1 million war points, then drop there war rating by 600. So in now a masters alliance is down facing plat 2 alliances. Basically cruzing for the remainder of the season to finish back in masters or plat 1. Meanwhile those in plat 2 and plat 3 get crushed by said alliances and risk falling out their current spot.

If you want a punishment that works, strip 8 million points away and leave the war rating the same. Now they are facing the same competition but wont be able to climb back up.

Stripping a lot of points and leaving war rating intact does penalize the alliance more than dropping war rating and doesn't have the side effect of allowing the penalized alliance to fight weaker competition which softens the penalty, but it can be difficult to tune the penalty by tier, and the penalty shouldn't just work for the top tier alliances: it should theoretically work against any alliance at any tier.

I've been advocating a multiplier penalty since season one. You can still penalize season points (you should at the very least take away the points they earned in any way they are found cheating in, plus some punitive extra amount of points as penalty), but you also slap a multiplier penalty for a certain number of wars, say 0.5. Until that penalty expires, you only earn half the points you would otherwise earn, but you remain in the same tier facing the same competition. If you are in tier 1, you still get a x7 mutliplier, but then you also get hit with the 0.5 penalty. In net effect, you have only a 3.5 multipler.

If you are caught cheating in the last war of the season and you are hit with a six war multiplier penalty, that penalty carries over into the next season: you cannot shake it during the "off season." It specifically affects wars within the competitive season. It would be like serving out a suspension in sports: you can't serve those out during the off season. This ensures the full penalty is served out, even if you're caught cheating at the end of a season.

Well said

unknown

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DNA3000

Kabamwontanswerme wrote: »

I started a new alliance and in a week we had 30 members. We started playing alliance wars and won the first 3 building our war rating to 296. Then i received a message from kabam that due to 1 or more members of the alliance violating terms of the alliance war our war rating was reduced. Well reduced to ZERO. I then sent kabam a message and received a generic response about account sharing. I questioned every member in the alliance and every member denies any account sharing or rule breaking or cheating of any kind. So we left it go. Then week 2 we build our war rating to 240 and then i received another message from kabam stating the same thing. And again reduced our war rating to ZERO. Again sent kabam a message and again received the same generic message i received the week before. So now what do i do and what do i tell the other 29 members of my alliance that are all playing within all rules and guidelines set by kabam.

I wish I could say something helpful besides that I disagree strongly with Kabam's position in this matter, but the only thing I could say in your position is that unfortunately, because one of your members is probably lying, the others will have to pay for that lie until they stop breaking the rules or stop lying about it.

Beyond that, I don't know what else can be done besides trying to watch the other members fight in AW and try to divine out who might be piloting.

Maximus_Spankerson

This is a perfect instance of this. Punish the individual member. Ban them. They are punishing 29 for action of one.

GbSarkar

DNA3000 wrote: »

RehctansBew wrote: »

The current system is not a deterrent for cheating. They slap the top alliances on the wrist, take away 1 million war points, then drop there war rating by 600. So in now a masters alliance is down facing plat 2 alliances. Basically cruzing for the remainder of the season to finish back in masters or plat 1. Meanwhile those in plat 2 and plat 3 get crushed by said alliances and risk falling out their current spot.

If you want a punishment that works, strip 8 million points away and leave the war rating the same. Now they are facing the same competition but wont be able to climb back up.

Stripping a lot of points and leaving war rating intact does penalize the alliance more than dropping war rating and doesn't have the side effect of allowing the penalized alliance to fight weaker competition which softens the penalty, but it can be difficult to tune the penalty by tier, and the penalty shouldn't just work for the top tier alliances: it should theoretically work against any alliance at any tier.

I've been advocating a multiplier penalty since season one. You can still penalize season points (you should at the very least take away the points they earned in any way they are found cheating in, plus some punitive extra amount of points as penalty), but you also slap a multiplier penalty for a certain number of wars, say 0.5. Until that penalty expires, you only earn half the points you would otherwise earn, but you remain in the same tier facing the same competition. If you are in tier 1, you still get a x7 mutliplier, but then you also get hit with the 0.5 penalty. In net effect, you have only a 3.5 multipler.

If you are caught cheating in the last war of the season and you are hit with a six war multiplier penalty, that penalty carries over into the next season: you cannot shake it during the "off season." It specifically affects wars within the competitive season. It would be like serving out a suspension in sports: you can't serve those out during the off season. This ensures the full penalty is served out, even if you're caught cheating at the end of a season.

And now, they buy a new alliance with a high war rating (plenty of abandoned alliances available. Ever wondered why people keep smurf accounts as leaders in those alliances instead of outright deleting the alliance by leaving it?) To add the finishing touches, they change the name and tag of the alliance they bought to be the same as their last alliance
Simply banning alliances from getting rewards also won't work. These cheaters would just move to/buy their place in a different alliance. This is more problematic because to make space for these cheaters, honest players might get kicked from their alliance
So permanently ban the cheaters? Yeah, that won't work as well. They'll buy another account and come back

So what's the solution? (I know people won't like mine) Don't make AW the only way for end-game players to progress quickly. Spread out the rewards more evenly. Buff AQ rewards! Don't make AW season rewards so widely different between brackets!
I remember Miike once saying that AW was supposed to be the way to gain champs and AQ the way to rank up those champs. Hence why AW didn't award catalysts and AQ doesn't award crystal shards. All that balance got thrown out of the window with AW seasons.
Kabam knew perfectly well what the outcome would be when they designed AW seasons. S1 and S2 AQ was a perfect example of how far alliances are willing to go to secure end-game rewards which are only available to a limited number of alliances in different brackets (alliance swapping, buying, using placeholder alliances to prevent other alliances to get t4c, buying high prestige inactive accounts to maintain alliance prestige, etc). But of course potential to milk thousands of dollars more from these "top-tier" alliances was impossible to ignore. So expect more game-breaking defenders to be realeased mid-season, followed by various rank-up offers and then the release of even more broken offence champs which render all champs useless on defence, which is followed by even more rank up offers, and the cycle continues (oh, and expect lots of bugged mechanics and champ interactions, unannounced nerfs and other stuff as well)

/rant